Fashion and Textile Studies Symposium: Dressing New York: Identity and Experience

A commercial and cultural capital, New York is the center of the American fashion industry, home of fashion innovators in design, production, and retail. Creators of both luxurious custom clothing and ready-to-wear sportswear have found a place in New York, as have the retailers who marketed and sold these items and the journalists who authored the fashion news for the American public. Yet the New York dress experience goes beyond the industry, encompassing a diversity of expressions of individuals and subcultures, all drawn to the energy of this place of extremes.

In this symposium, students in FIT’s MA program in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice will present papers on a range of topics, investigating New York dress in the 19th and 20th centuries. From issues of gender and dress reform to design milestones and triumphs of the mainstream fashion system, New Yorkers reimagine and reinvent themselves through dress.

This event is free and open to the public.